Blizzard Entertainment cannot simply force the use of artificial intelligence in ways that don’t work for its developers.
Blizzard Entertainment’s union, in partnership with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), recently signed a historic contract with the studio. Among other things, the contract requires the studio to discuss, evaluate, and bargain over any implementation of generative artificial intelligence in the workplace. This contract was two years in the making and affects approximately 1,900 employees across the studio, including those working on World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, quality assurance (QA), Overwatch, and Diablo. The contract itself is a significant help to these employees, who are living through uncertain times due to the Xbox reset, which affected more than 1,600 jobs and may soon put another 1,600 at risk.
These benefits include pay raises, grievance procedures, a hybrid workweek with three days of in-office attendance, remote work, and accommodations for people with disabilities. Most importantly, however, the agreement requires Blizzard to have all workplace AI usage approved first. The contracts now require Blizzard to discuss, evaluate, and bargain over the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace. This means Microsoft cannot simply impose AI use from the top down, as it has done in the past in its software development divisions.
As for Xbox’s 2027 deadline, which hangs over future layoffs, union members are also protected if that happens. In an industry first, the new union contracts give workers the right to be “recalled” to any vacant position within a Blizzard bargaining unit for up to 14 months from the date a layoff is announced. Workers also won an additional four weeks of severance for union members, regardless of length of employment.
Speaking about the victory, quality assurance worker and bargaining committee member Simon Hedrick said: “I believe the positive change we achieved will ripple outward and help make the games industry as a whole a better place for both workers and players. This contract is the beginning of something bigger, and I ask everyone to remember: when we fight together, we win together.”
This is a huge victory for a studio that, like most studios under the Xbox umbrella, is accompanied by a vague and threatening sense of doom. In a sane world, we could say that Blizzard makes enough money to be safe, but that simply isn’t the industry we live in. Microsoft may value us at $68.7 billion, and we can still be unprofitable.
